Hello Jim and welcome to the forum.
Let me say congratulations on your imminent arrival also.

OK, the official bit:
please acquaint yourself with the rules if you haven't done so already and you may also find our welcome, guides and hints helpful.
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me or one of the other mods (junior ministers) by private message.
Apart from that carry on as you are.

Thanks for the welcome. Had a brief read of the rules but they are generally the same as the plethora of forums I use. No swearing (%^$£"&), no personal attacks and the usual. Still with smart use of language that leave plenty of room. Having read many of your posts already I have feeling we may be kindred spirits in many ways...

Hi, Jim, glad to meet you here, I'm wondering whether you are interested in what's happening and China and would like to be more involved in the China forum.

Hi Jim, and welcome to the forum. Since Opinionated has done the official welcome bit, I'll simply say "get stuck in" and I'm quite sure that you'll find plenty of views here to both agree with and to disagree with. As someone else with bipartisan views in the whole area of politics, government and social matters, I suspect we might have a fair bit of common ground on a number of issues.

Originally Posted by longriver

Hi, Jim, glad to meet you here, I'm wondering whether you are interested in what's happening and China and would like to be more involved in the China forum.

Don't know too much about China to be honest, apart from the fact it has the largest China town in the world..

Originally Posted by Midas

Hi Jim, and welcome to the forum. Since Opinionated has done the official welcome bit, I'll simply say "get stuck in" and I'm quite sure that you'll find plenty of views here to both agree with and to disagree with. As someone else with bipartisan views in the whole area of politics, government and social matters, I suspect we might have a fair bit of common ground on a number of issues.

Having read some of your posts I would totally agree with that view...should be fun..

Originally Posted by Midas

As someone else with bipartisan views in the whole area of politics, government and social matters, I suspect we might have a fair bit of common ground on a number of issues.

It helps to have at least one Moderator on a site like this who is bipartisan. It makes for more efficient and less erratic administration of fair treatment to the views of all and sundry because to be this is to be unbiased against any, to be more general and less specific as well as to be across-the-board, not confined to any one-party policy, etc. I suppose you are neither totally left, right or centre in that respect, but a proportion of each where feasible, although at a guess I myself would say you are liberal but I did once believe you were conservative in your views after being on the 'UKIP Want to Ban the Burqua' thread. I doubt you are at all left, judging by what I have read of your posts.

Originally Posted by Janus

It helps to have at least one Moderator on a site like this who is bipartisan. It makes for more efficient and less erratic administration of fair treatment to the views of all and sundry because to be this is to be unbiased against any, to be more general and less specific as well as to be across-the-board, not confined to any one-party policy, etc. I suppose you are neither totally left, right or centre in that respect, but a proportion of each where feasible, although at a guess I myself would say you are liberal but I did once believe you were conservative in your views after being on the 'UKIP Want to Ban the Burqua' thread. I doubt you are at all left, judging by what I have read of your posts.

Oh, I'll freely agree that I'm much more to the right than to the left, however there are a number of policies which are more often associated with the liberal or leftist point of view which I feel could well be incorporated into the free market capitalistic approach to add some humanity to them.

On the moderator issue, we do try hard not to let any political bias we might hold as individuals to interfere with any moderation duties, one reason we always try to obtain a consensus view before taking any necessary action.

Originally Posted by Midas

Oh, I'll freely agree that I'm much more to the right than to the left, however there are a number of policies which are more often associated with the liberal or leftist point of view which I feel could well be incorporated into the free market capitalistic approach to add some humanity to them.

I don't agree with 'free market capitalism'. For me that is defined by that was it Christian Aid ad in the magazine press where it shows a market trader lower down in the spectrum pitted against a corporation that is outdoing him for competitive custom and clientele. Much bigger business, as they say. It depicted the two as diametrically opposite advantages in the characters of David and Goliath. I learnt a lot from that ad in that day, and it made me see corporate business as a play for plutocratic domination in the commercial sector, with free enterprise that the Tories advocate(d) as the vehicle for its carriage. That is why I support the Leftist view that top earners should be taxed with higher income tax at, they would say, 50p in the £pound-but with that that bigger businesses should be regulated to stop them spiralling out of control and thus a fairer chance should be given to smaller fledgeling or struggling companies represented as David by our fruit market trader in the abovementioned advert.

On the moderator issue, we do try hard not to let any political bias we might hold as individuals to interfere with any moderation duties, one reason we always try to obtain a consensus view before taking any necessary action.

I bet though that this makes it hard for you to change your views in a way that is not affected by your responsibility here on the forum as an unbiased Moderator, even when you want to? Do you feel an emphatic affinity with the typical civil servant in that respect? Here I mean.

Originally Posted by Janus

I don't agree with 'free market capitalism'. For me that is defined by that was it Christian Aid ad in the magazine press where it shows a market trader lower down in the spectrum pitted against a corporation that is outdoing him for competitive custom and clientele. Much bigger business, as they say. It depicted the two as diametrically opposite advantages in the characters of David and Goliath. I learnt a lot from that ad in that day, and it made me see corporate business as a play for plutocratic domination in the commercial sector, with free enterprise that the Tories advocate(d) as the vehicle for its carriage. That is why I support the Leftist view that top earners should be taxed with higher income tax at, they would say, 50p in the £pound-but with that that bigger businesses should be regulated to stop them spiralling out of control and thus a fairer chance should be given to smaller fledgeling or struggling companies represented as David by our fruit market trader in the abovementioned advert.

We're at opposite ends of the spectrum here, but that's something for a thread on its own if you want to pursue it

I bet though that this makes it hard for you to change your views in a way that is not affected by your responsibility here on the forum as an unbiased Moderator, even when you want to? Do you feel an emphatic affinity with the typical civil servant in that respect? Here I mean.

Personally I don't have a problem with doing that; I can separate out my own views and opinions from what's necessary as a moderator, something which is perhaps against my nature but is something I've learnt to do, had to do, over the last 25+ years of being a company director.